


this weight off your shoulders

by biblionerd07



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Betrayal, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Healing, Human Trafficking, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team as Family, Trauma, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26165575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: Joe and Nicky are supposed to be on vacation, healing from the aftermath of Merrick and the lab. But the work they do doesn't take a break, and sometimes they can't, either.
Relationships: Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova & Nile Freeman, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 72
Kudos: 499





	this weight off your shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> I really set out to write a light, fluffy fic with Joe and Nicky on vacation and it turned into 12.5k of mission fic and how they're dealing with trauma. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Also I spent like three hours trying to research whether or not Nicky would have learned how to write as a priest and couldn't find a concrete answer so sorry if my one throw-away line isn't historically accurate.

Usually, after a job, and especially after a job that goes badly, they take time for themselves. It’s rare for the team to stick together after the end of a job these days; logically, it’s easier to lie low in smaller groups, but it hasn’t been about that in a long time. Andy has needed more and more space and solitude as the centuries wear on; Booker—well. Joe decides he’s not going to think about what Booker used to do or need.

The point is, this is usually where Joe and Nicky would travel, just the two of them. After that lab, after watching that man put a gun in Nicky’s beautiful mouth and splatter his brain matter across the floor, Joe needs to be able to touch Nicky freely, to reassure himself that they’re both still here.

But then there’s Nile, so new and vulnerable. She’s strong, of course, and she can take care of herself. But this isn’t something she should have to face on her own. They want to be nearby to answer her questions or just to be there for her. As much as Joe is pointedly not thinking of Booker, he can’t help himself sometimes. Maybe if they’d—

But no. They gave Booker all the love and affection they could. And Nile is not Booker. Nile is not going to betray anyone. It goes against her very nature.

Aside from Nile, there’s Andy. She can _die_ now. She bleeds and doesn’t heal, she goes down and doesn’t get up. It’s terrifying, and Joe and Nicky are loath to let her out of their sight after all this. If it is her time, if something happens and she finally goes, they don’t want to be anywhere else but beside her to say their goodbyes.

Still, they should have known better. This is Andy, after all.

“Alright, you guys, just _go_ ,” Andy says, exasperated. They’ve been holed up in Scotland for a month, a month since the lab and since Booker and since Andy stopped healing. Personally, Joe thinks they’ve been doing an admirable job of not hovering over her. She obviously doesn’t agree.

“Andy, we’re here—” Joe starts.

“I know,” Andy cuts him off. She puts her hand on his shoulder. “You’re worried about me, and you’re worried about Nile, and you’re hanging around to look out for us. Thank you. But we can handle a few weeks for you to get away.”

“Are we being that bad?” Nicky asks.

“Not bad,” Andy promises gently. “But I have to look out for you, too.”

Of course she knows that they need their time away. She’s known them for centuries. Joe looks at Nicky. Nicky tips his head to one side, deliberating. They’ll talk to Nile, then. If she says she’s okay, they’ll go.

“Uh, you know I’m a grownup, right?” Nile asks when they ask her. “Like, obviously I’m a lot younger than you. But I don’t need you holding my hand while I cross the street or anything.”

Nicky is a kind, beautiful man, so he does her the courtesy of not pointing out he’d held her hand after a nightmare just last night. It isn’t what she means, anyway.

“We didn’t mean to say…” Nicky starts.

Nile waves a hand. “No, I know. And you guys have been so great, I promise. But I can handle you going on vacation.” She looks up then. “I mean—you’re coming back, right?” She doesn’t sound panicked, not exactly, but there’s an undercurrent of worry in her voice.

“Two weeks, tops,” Joe promises.

“Maybe three,” Nicky says, pressing his shoulder against Joe’s, which makes Joe grin pretty much reflexively.

Nile relaxes. “I’m not saying me and Andy wouldn’t be okay here on our own,” she says. “But…”

Nicky pats her arm. “We know.”

They’ve gotten very used to being together, the four of them. A month is such a short amount of time, but it’s been long enough to take comfort from each other. They’ve all been a constant for each other in the past month, and it’s hard to let that go with everything that’s changed.

But they aren’t going for long. Long enough for Joe to stop seeing Nicky strapped to a table when he closes his eyes, to get the taste of gas out of the back of his throat no matter what he eats or drinks or how many times he brushes his teeth. Long enough for Nicky to stop jerking awake in the middle of the night to grab for Joe with one hand and his gun with the other, to chase away the haunted look in Nicky’s eyes when he stares at his forehead in the mirror a few beats too long. Long enough to settle them.

They take the train over to the continent. They don’t linger in Paris. Besides the fact that it’s an unwelcome reminder of Booker, there’s also a high chance he’s here. Joe could just see him slinking off to his homeland with his tail between his legs, still thinking he was justified in leaving them to an eternity of torture.

Joe’s not actually mad at Booker anymore. Well, he is. But most of his anger has dissipated into a dull, throbbing pain. He wishes he could hold onto the anger so it didn’t hurt so much. Knowing Booker, the man Joe loved as a brother, the man Joe spent countless hours with, was so quick to disregard him, his love, so quick to turn on him and hate Joe for his own misery—it turns Joe’s stomach.

And _Nicky_. Nicky spent hours with Booker, in the early days, listening to him talk about his wife, holding him as he cried for his children. It was Nicky who convinced Andy to let Booker go back to say his goodbyes. It was Nicky who found Booker after Jean-Pierre died, drunk and sobbing in the woods. And it was Nicky who Booker betrayed.

Nicky can see it all on Joe’s face as they sit on the train, waiting to leave Paris behind. He takes Joe’s hand and raises it to his lips, takes his time to kiss each knuckle on its own, until Joe is smiling because it’s silly, it’s over the top, it’s perfect.

“What do you want to eat when we get there?” Nicky asks.

Joe bumps his forehead against Nicky’s. “I can think of something.”

Nicky laughs. It’s one of Joe’s favorite sounds on the Earth, a sound he’s been hearing for nearly a thousand years and hopes to keep hearing for eternity. Nicky clicks his tongue, chastising. “This is not something to discuss with an audience,” he says, dropping his voice low.

“Yes, they’ll get jealous,” Joe agrees, smiling when Nicky laughs again. Joe already feels more relaxed, more grounded. Having time to just be the two of them—just Yusuf and Nicolò, two men who fell in love and stayed there—always puts him back together.

They decided against Malta. They’ll go back, someday. But they don’t want to sully Malta with the maelstrom of betrayal and hurt and terror they’ve been feeling. They want to keep it special and wonderful. Instead, they’ve rented a flat in Barcelona.

They haven’t spent much time in Spain since the country’s civil war, just before they moved through Europe during the worst of what people now call the second World War. Joe went to Spain once in his first life, before immortality and Nicky, on one of his father’s ships. He remembers almost nothing from that trip.

He knows he didn’t learn much Spanish, despite a lot of time spent in the company of a beautiful Spanish man. Joe can’t remember what he looked like anymore or any actual details of their time together; his brain only supplies him with Nicky’s face, Nicky’s hands, Nicky’s tongue. Joe feels no sense of loss at this.

He thinks they should spend more time in Spain, maybe. It’s bright and sunny and vibrant. He tips his face to the sky and closes his eyes. After a month in Scotland, which is beautiful but so often raining, the sun is a welcome old friend.

Nicky is studying his phone when Joe opens his eyes again. “We have a passcode to get inside,” Nicky reports. “No key.”

“Very modern,” Joe says, ready for Nicky’s reaction.

Predictably, Nicky makes a face. “I don’t like it.”

Joe laughs, feeling a little giddy. They are alive and they are free and they are safe. Most importantly, they are together. He leans over and kisses Nicky right there in the street, because he can. They chose Barcelona specifically so that he could do that without attracting glances or angry mutters. There will always be people who won’t like to see him kiss Nicky, but right now they’re in what Nile told them was “one of the gayest cities in Europe.”

“It’s number ten on this listicle,” she’d told them, pointing to her tablet.

“Number ten on—what?” Joe asked, baffled.

“Listicle,” she said. “A list article. They just list things people might want to buy or rank places or whatever.”

Nicky nodded like this was very sensible. He doesn’t like modern technology much, but he’s always rolled with descriptivist language changes. Probably because he had someone else to write things down for him while he was a priest and hates writing for himself. His spelling has always been atrocious, no matter the language.

So they kiss on the street, and Joe wraps his arm around Nicky’s waist while they walk, and Nicky leans into Joe’s body. They find their flat and Nicky grumbles a bit more about the lack of a key. He’s very attached to keys as a concept, which Joe has always found ridiculous considering they haven’t _owned_ keys for most of their lives.

“But this leaves your hands free,” Joe points out, pressed against Nicky’s back and murmuring into his ear.

“I am holding four things in my hands,” Nicky counters. He has his phone and the book he was reading on the train and the handle of their suitcase and a duffel bag full of weapons. Joe is more sensible and put his phone in his pocket, so he only has the other duffel bag full of weapons. Maybe he should be more gallant and offer to hold something for Nicky, but he’s not going to.

Really, you can’t ask a man to carry _two_ duffel bags of weapons on his own during his vacation. It’s too much. Joe is still very romantic, even after over 900 years, but he does not subscribe to the idea of chivalry that means he has to carry things for Nicky. Nicky is perfectly capable of carrying his own things.

“But not five,” Joe says triumphantly. “Where would you even put a key if you had one?”

Nicky kicks open the door and immediately drops all four things out of his hands inside the entryway. “Now I’m holding nothing,” he says. “So come inside and make love to me.”

Well. Nicky always does know how to make a point, words or no words. Joe isn’t going to waste his breath arguing when he could put his mouth to much better uses.

“That is not enough,” Nicky sing-songs in Joe’s ear. They’re in the kitchen, ostensibly making dinner. Really, Nicky has fixed himself to Joe’s back, his hands low on Joe’s hips, and Joe is purposefully doing things wrong to get Nicky to correct him in that playful tone. This is a game they’ve played for a few centuries, a pretense to touch each other. They don’t _need_ games and pretenses, of course, but it’s fun and this is what their time alone is for.

It isn’t the kind of thing they do every night. They especially don’t do things like this if they’re sharing a kitchen with anyone. Joe is the only one who gets to hear that voice from Nicky, even if sometimes Joe wishes Nicky would be more playful with everyone else. The closest he gets is with Andy and Booker.

Not Booker. Not anymore. Nile, now.

Nicky gives Joe’s ear a little nibble. “You’re not paying attention,” he chides.

“I’m paying attention to exactly what deserves my attention,” Joe corrects, reaching up a hand to touch Nicky’s face. Nicky turns his head and kisses Joe’s wrist. They use their vacation times, their alone time, to save up their playfulness, their intimate touches. They do their best to be more casual with everyone else around. They’ve never liked to rub Booker’s and Andy’s noses in their happiness, not with the two of them having gone through such profound pain and loss.

Andy never begrudged them their intimacy, not after the first few years after Quynh. Booker, though…Joe can see it more clearly now from this side of things. The way he’d turn his head away when they reached for each other after a death. The way his mouth would twist sometimes when Nicky would make Joe laugh. The way his jaw would clench when Joe said _Nicolò_ in that special voice.

There is a part of Joe that wonders if they should have noticed it at some point during the last two hundred years, been more careful, hidden themselves better. But then the rest of him gets angry. Why should they have to? They already took great care not to let their touches linger. Booker had probably only seen them kiss in the double digits over two hundred years. They were _considerate_ at every turn, and he resented them all the same.

“You are definitely not paying attention to me now,” Nicky points out. He doesn’t sound annoyed; mostly just curious.

Joe isn’t going to talk about Booker right now. Booker is not invited on this vacation, nor any others for at least the next hundred years. Instead, Joe puts down the spoon he was using to mix the flour and eggs together. He turns in Nicky’s arms and presses their chests together. “What a mistake,” Joe murmurs. “How could I not pay attention to you?”

Nicky huffs, eyes searching Joe’s. “Are you alright?”

“There are very few times I have been better,” Joe promises. It’s the truth, even with some of his bleaker thoughts.

Nicky’s smile grows. “Is that so?” He asks, dropping his head to suck at Joe’s collarbone. “Right now is not _the_ best?”

“You know you’re only competing with yourself,” Joe tells him, tilting his head to give Nicky more room.

“The best opponent,” Nicky murmurs into Joe’s skin. It makes Joe shiver. But then Nicky pulls back and says, surprised, “Is that all the basil we have left?”

“What?” Joe asks, dazed.

“There isn’t enough for the pesto.” Nicky leans further over Joe’s shoulder. “I should have picked some up while we were out.”

“That’s what you’re thinking about right now?” Joe asks incredulously.

“I wasn’t,” Nicky admits. “But now I’m looking at it.” He gives Joe a little smirk. “I guess you’ll have to wait.”

Joe can’t quite help himself; he captures Nicky’s lips in a kiss. “I suppose I can wait,” he says. “For a prize like this.”

Nicky’s laugh rumbles in his chest. Joe feels it against his body and it sends sparks all down his spine. “I’ll hurry,” Nicky promises. There’s a market three blocks away. He looks around for clothes. He hasn’t been wearing anything for hours now. That is one of Joe’s favorite parts of vacations.

“No, I’ll go,” Joe says. “Art like this should never be covered, only displayed.” He squeezes Nicky’s ass for punctuation.

“You are really testing my resolve for pesto,” Nicky reports, one hand coming up to cup Joe’s jaw and the other winding around Joe’s waist.

“The highest praise you could give me,” Joe says.

Joe leaves him with a last kiss and a few not-quite-chaste touches. “Hurry,” Nicky says. Joe doesn’t ask if Nicky’s more impatient for him or for the basil. He prefers to stay blissfully ignorant on that point.

It’s nearing dusk now, with the kind of budding sunset that makes Joe think he should buy paints and canvas again. They’re too unwieldly to move from safehouse to safehouse, but sometimes he does miss the beauty he can create with colors.

He gets the basil, and then he sees bags of oranges and gets one of those, too, because he loves to lick the juice from Nicky’s fingers after he peels them. That’s what he’s thinking about when he’s walking home, so he thinks he can be forgiven for failing to notice for a few minutes that he’s being followed.

When he does realize it, he doesn’t give any indication that he has. He keeps walking at the same pace, doesn’t pause, doesn’t glance behind him. He has a knife at his ankle, though he isn’t sure if he’ll be able to reach down to get it in time. It isn’t entirely necessary. He knows plenty of ways to defend himself without any weapons if he has to.

The footsteps behind him speed up. Joe almost snorts. His pursuer is not very good at this. Joe allows himself to be overtaken, and he’s not surprised when he feels a hand dip into his pocket. He grabs at the wrist, ready to twist it, when he realizes the size of this wrist means this is a _child_ trying to pickpocket him.

Joe drops the wrist in his grasp and turns around. There’s a young boy standing in front of him, cowering, hands over his face. Preparing himself for a blow, Joe thinks grimly. He’s dirty and the kind of thin that comes from going hungry far too often.

“I’m not going to hit you,” Joe tells him in Spanish. “Why are you trying to steal from me?”

“I’m hungry,” the boy says sullenly. He doesn’t seem very surprised or ashamed at getting caught.

“How old are you?” Joe asks. He doesn’t think he could be older than ten, but Joe isn’t very good at judging children’s ages.

His little eyes narrow. “Why?”

Joe shrugs. “Just wondering. My name is Joe. Would you like to come with me for something to eat?” He’ll give the boy the oranges if he says no, but it isn’t a substantial meal. He can give him some money, but Joe only has a few euro left in his pocket right now. He doesn’t think the child will follow him to a cash point. They’re more comfortable using prepaid cash cards now that Copley is watching out for any online footprints they leave behind.

The boy looks at Joe and glances around the street. He shifts from foot to foot. “How far?” He asks suspiciously.

“Not far,” Joe promises. He points to the building they’re staying in.

The boy scratches one skinny arm. He has a rash. “Okay.”

He follows Joe, not walking beside him even when Joe slows down. Joe leaves him to it. He leads the little boy up the steps and remembers he left Nicky naked. “Wait just a moment,” he tells the boy. He pushes the door open a crack and calls out in Arabic, “Nicolò, are you dressed?”

Nicky comes out of the kitchen, clothed now. Joe would be disappointed if he were alone. “What’s going on?” Nicky asks.

Joe opens the door fully and steps inside, revealing the little boy. “We have a guest.”

Nicky’s eyebrows shoot up. Joe watches his eyes take in the little boy’s sunken cheeks, his thin clothes, his grimy face. Nicky nods. “Hello,” he says, switching to Spanish. “I’m Nicky. Are you hungry, little one?”

There’s something about seeing Nicky with children that always shoots straight to Joe’s heart. Nicky has always had a soft spot for children, always ready to shield their eyes from whatever inevitable horror he and Joe are there for and give them sweets and trinkets he buys just for them. Joe pictures it sometimes: the two of them raising children together. Nicky bouncing a little baby girl on his knee, a chubby toddler calling out _Papà! Abi!_ when they walk through the door.

But of course they can’t do that. Not with the life they lead. Not with the constant wars they go fight in. Not with the way they don’t die or age, until one day when they abruptly will. Instead, he keeps that fantasy locked in his heart and only lets himself think about it sometimes, on dark nights when blood soaks his skin and turns Nicky’s hair black and there are people screaming all around them.

“What’s your name?” Joe tries.

“Why?” The boy asks, like he did with his age.

“We’d like to know what to call you,” Nicky explains.

“I just want to eat,” the boy counters.

“Alright,” Joe says easily. He holds up the basil and the oranges. Nicky smiles at the oranges but holds his hand out for the basil.

“Now I can finish dinner,” he says. He looks at the boy. “Can you wait ten minutes?” He only gets a shrug of the boy’s skinny shoulders in return.

Joe follows Nicky into the kitchen, talking softly even though he switches to Arabic. He thinks Italian will be too close to Spanish; the boy might recognize a few words. “He tried to pick my pocket. I almost broke his wrist.”

“But instead you brought him home,” Nicky says fondly. He hands Joe a knife to get to work on chopping garlic for the pesto.

“He looks very hungry,” Joe says.

“He does,” Nicky agrees sadly. “I don’t think we’ll be able to get him to stay here to sleep.”

Joe has to leave the garlic for a moment to crowd close to Nicky and kiss his temple. Of course Nicky would want the boy to stay. Of course he wouldn’t even have to ask to know Joe wants that, too. Nicky huffs and turns his head a little so their lips can meet.

“You need to get to work,” Nicky scolds. “We can’t leave our guest waiting.”

“You are a ferocious boss,” Joe tells him.

“I promise the pay is worth it.” Nicky even winks. Joe laughs out loud. But he does as he’s told.

They can’t get any other answers or even words out of the boy. He eats carefully, each bite measured to put the maximum amount of food in his mouth. He finishes his plate and Nicky heaps out more pasta, more vegetables. He pours the boy a glass of milk, butters him pieces of bread the boy shoves into his filthy pockets.

After two full plates, the boy’s stomach is visibly bulging. He rubs at it and looks like he might cry. “Do you have somewhere to sleep tonight?” Joe asks. The summer is waning, the nights getting cooler, and he doesn’t want the boy to be cold.

But then the boy pushes back from the table. Joe feels his shoulders slump. He hoped the boy might stay long enough to at least tell them his name. He eyes them while he crosses to the door, suspicious like they’re going to stop him. They don’t.

“Would you like to take some food with you?” Joe tries, pretending he hadn’t noticed the boy pocketing the bread.

That makes the boy hesitate, but he doesn’t take the offer. He slips out the door without another word. Joe sighs. He hopes the boy doesn’t throw up all that food. Nicky leans over and strokes Joe’s cheek. “We did what we could,” he says.

But he doesn’t sound happy about it, either. Sometimes, doing what they can just isn’t enough. Joe thinks of the crack in Andy’s voice after the debacle in Sudan, the way she’d said, _The world isn’t getting better_. Some days, it’s hard to convince himself she’s wrong. They want so badly to fix things, but there’s too much to fix.

Nicky turns Joe’s face to look at him. “This was not nothing,” he murmurs, knowing Joe’s thoughts as always. “You saw a frightened, hungry child and you fed him. That is something, Yusuf. It was certainly not nothing to that child. That is important.”

Joe leans in to rest his forehead against Nicky’s, throat swelling with love for this man. “You’re right,” he says. They have to remind each other of this fact sometimes, the fact that their small drop in the bucket of human experience can still cause ripples.

“As usual,” Nicky teases with a little smile. He rubs the back of Joe’s neck. “Are you going to pray tonight?”

He still has time to fit in the Maghrib before ‘Isha. Joe’s adherence to his faith runs in cycles. Often, how terrible their battles have been weighs heavily on his decision to stick to Salah or not. He knows he should be leaning on his faith most when things seem the worst, knows he would feel better about humanity and the world if he were being stricter with his beliefs and actually went to a mosque for Friday prayers, but it is so hard to do when he’s at his lowest.

It’s not about how he feels about faith or even humanity; it’s about how he feels about himself and the blood on his hands. He’ll never apologize for protecting his family, but it does take a toll on him, all the death and destruction he can wreak.

Nicky, of course, never pushes one way or the other. His own piety waxes and wanes, too, and his outward devotion to the majority of the rituals of Catholicism fell by the wayside long ago. He would never try to convince Joe that observance or unorthodoxy is the better path. He only makes sure Joe has the space for his prayers—physically and otherwise—if he chooses to take it.

Joe nods against Nicky. “I will.” He rests for another moment against Nicky. He kisses Nicky’s jaw and then pushes himself up. Nicky catches his hand as he stands and gives it a quick squeeze before releasing him, and Joe thinks, not for the first time, that maybe they could fix the world if there were just a few more Nicolòs in it. But when he tells Nicky this, Nicky only gives him a soft smile and says,

“That’s funny. I was thinking the same thing about you.”

“I was thinking,” Joe says. They’re walking hand-in-hand down the street. Nicky is only half-listening; they’d stopped at a book shop, and he’s letting Joe guide him while he starts reading one-handed. Once he left the priesthood and the battlefield and realized he could read whatever he wanted, as much as he wanted, he never looked back.

“Hm?” Nicky pretends to actually be listening.

“I want to look for that boy,” Joe says.

Nicky looks up. He closes the book and drops it back into the bag he’s carrying with the other books he’d bought. “That’s a good idea,” he decides.

It’s been two days, but Joe hasn’t been able to forget how thin the boy had been. He was only a _child._ A child should not be trying to steal for money, should not be so wary and afraid of the world around him. Joe isn’t naïve; he knows there are too many children, all over the world, who live the same way that boy does. Knowing that doesn’t mean he has to _accept_ it.

“Come with me?” Joe asks.

Nicky’s lips tick up. He nuzzles against Joe’s shoulder for a second. “Anywhere,” he promises. “And everywhere.”

They go back to the street where the boy had started following Joe. “I think he came from this direction,” Joe says. “I didn’t notice he was following me until here, but I know he was following me longer.”

“You didn’t notice?” Nicky asks, a little startled. “Was he that quiet?”

“Nicolò, I left you naked and was bringing home oranges,” Joe reminds him, laughing. “I was distracted.”

Nicky laughs and elbows Joe. “You would think after all these years, I’d be old news.’

“Never,” Joe breathes, brushing their noses together. “You will be my distraction until I finally stop waking.”

Nicky shakes his head. “After,” he vows, pressing his hand to Joe’s chest, right above his heart. “I will be right there with you.”

Joe has to kiss him after a statement like that. Nicky can call Joe an incurable romantic all he wants, but it’s not like it’s a one-sided kind of thing. They hold hands as they peek into allies and turn corners. After half an hour, Joe is disappointedly ready to admit defeat.

But Nicky juts his chin up ahead. “There is a group of kids,” he points out.

They try to look nonthreatening, but the kids scatter when they see Joe and Nicky coming. One stays behind—the boy from the other night. He raises his chin, but Joe can see him trembling.

“Did you come after me?” The boy asks.

“Yes,” Joe says truthfully. “We wanted to make sure you were okay.” He holds up the bag of croquetas they were going to save for dinner. “Are you hungry again?”

The boy doesn’t move closer. Joe and Nicky stay put, letting him decide if he wants to close the distance. “Why?” The boy asks, more emphatically than the other night.

“Because you look hungry,” Joe says.

“Because we want to help,” Nicky adds simply.

The boy takes one step closer. “Do you want to—take me?” He asks.

Nicky glances at Joe. “We’d like to let you sleep somewhere safe,” he says cautiously. “We don’t want to take you anywhere if you don’t want to go.”

The boy looks at Joe. Joe nods. “We just want to help,” he echoes Nicky.

The boy takes another two steps forward, close enough to snatch the bag from Joe. He looks into it, eyes widening a little. He pulls out a croqueta and bites into it. “I thought you might be the ones taking us from the streets,” he says conversationally.

Joe feels the bottom drop out of his stomach. “What?”

The boy doesn’t even look up from his food. “We have a group. We find food together. Somebody keeps taking us. My friends go and they don’t come back.”

Nicky meets Joe’s eyes. His jaw clenches. “How many of your friends have gone?” Nicky asks.

The boy shrugs. “I think four,” he says.

Joe lets out a breath. “And no one has seen them again?” He checks.

The boy shakes his head _no_. “Pascal says they’re baby-eaters,” he reports. “But Alba says that’s stupid. They’re just rapists like normal.”

Joe sucks in a breath involuntarily, shocked by the boy’s cavalier tone. “Where do they get taken from?” He asks.

The boy shrugs again. “All over.”

“Will you come with us?” Nicky asks. He’s keeping his voice even, but Joe can feel little tremors running through him. “To stay safe?”

The boy bites his lip, examining them both carefully. “Do you promise you won’t hurt me?”

Joe wants to cry. What a silly promise he’s asking them to make. If they did want to hurt him, it would be nothing to lie, to tell him what he wants to hear so he’ll come with them. It highlights how young he really is, the fact that there’s some part of him that can still trust.

Joe takes a deep breath. “I swear on every life I have,” he says.

The boy wrinkles his nose over Joe’s phrasing, but he seems to accept the answer. “Alright,” he says. “Can I have more food later?”

“Yes,” Nicky says. “Would you like a bath, as well?”

The boy thinks that over for a moment. “Okay,” he decides.

“We should get clothes,” Joe murmurs to Nicky.

Nicky nods. “You stay with him,” he says. “I’ll buy something.” He leaves them with a press against Joe’s hand, just a brief touch.

“Are you married?” The boy asks curiously, watching Nicky walk off.

“Yes,” Joe says.

They aren’t under any law of any country, but it’s a lot easier to call themselves married than explain their life history. Besides, they have fulfilled every kind of marriage vow possible a thousand times over. It’s legal for them to get married now, in many places, but they’ve honestly never seen much need. They already have God’s approval, as far as either of them are concerned, and legal contracts have never been something they’ve cared much about, especially when there’s no guarantee a government will stay in power for long. They’re bound by destiny and their own choice. That’s all they need.

“Do you have children?” The boy asks.

“No,” Joe tells him. “What’s your name?”

“Leo,” he says. “I’m nine.”

“Do you remember my name?” Joe asks.

“Joe,” Leo reports.

“Very good,” Joe praises. Leo bites down on a smile. He is so young, so small, so very _fragile_ , and Joe feels like his heart is climbing up his throat at the thought of him sleeping on the street and struggling for food, being snatched away by the darkest part of humanity. Leo is far from the first child they’ve seen on the street; he’s not even the first child they’ve even taken home for food and a few baths and a few nights in a bed. But it never gets easier to see.

Joe gets him back to their rented flat, snatching up a knife he’d been sharpening before they decided to go out for some coffee. Leo looks around a bit while Joe pokes around the kitchen. He doesn’t think Leo will be a picky eater, but he doesn’t want the boy to take just anything. He’d like him to have an opinion, get to eat something he likes.

He brings Leo rice and chicken and the last of the oranges, peeled and sectioned out into a dish. “Are you very rich?” Leo asks.

“A bit,” Joe says. They have accumulated a fair amount of wealth over nine hundred years. It’s pretty easy to do when you’ve lived as long as they have. The problem is their wealth is hardly easily accessible. Half of it is still in gold and silver pieces. Exchanging it these days tends to attract questions.

“I’d like to be very rich someday,” Leo says thoughtfully, shoveling rice into his mouth. “I want to buy a palace and have food in every room.”

“A wonderful idea,” Joe tells him. “Make sure to have plenty of washrooms.”

“Five,” Leo agrees. “And a swimming pool!”

Joe can’t help but smile at his exuberance. “Inside the house?”

Leo’s eyes go big and round. “Can swimming pools go in houses?”

“Well, it’s your palace,” Joe says reasonably. “You can have whatever you want.”

Leo contemplates this with a gusto. Joe doesn’t let himself think about the reality of this child dying before he reaches adulthood. He can consider that later, when the boy isn’t sitting alive and vibrant in front of him.

Nicky comes in as Leo is finishing his food. “Hello,” Nicky says. “Have you had enough to eat?” He sets down the bags he’s carrying and pulls out an entire chocolate cake. “Or could you have some cake?”

Joe snorts. Nicky probably ran straight to buy the cake the second Leo came with them. It’s at least half for Nicky himself. Joe keeps telling him he can have as much cake as he wants—they’re immortal, for one thing, and adults, and Joe doesn’t see any reason _not_ to eat cake, for another—but Nicky makes himself hold back. Some kind of residual priest self-deprivation, Joe thinks. That kind of thing pops up in the oddest ways, even after a millennium.

“His name is Leo,” Joe tells Nicky. “He’s nine.”

“That is a very nice name,” Nicky says solemnly. “Do you like lions?”

“I saw one at the zoo once,” Leo reports, mouth full of cake.

“Joe once fought a lion,” Nicky says.

Leo gulps. “Did you win?”

Joe shrugs. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

He _did_ fight a lion. He did not live through it. But he did escape, and he hadn’t even had to kill the lion, so he thinks it was a win all around.

They eventually shuffle Leo off to take a bath. Nicky fills the tub for him and shows him the new clothes he bought. They leave him to it with instructions to call out if he needs help. Leo gives them a funny look that means he will not be calling out for help, but that’s alright.

Nicky sighs when they get back to the kitchen. “He has a rash all over his arm. I bought cream for it, but I don’t know what it is.”

Joe nods. “Maybe it’ll clear up with a bath,” he says.

“Maybe,” Nicky says.

Joe looks toward the window, thinking of Leo’s group and the people pulling children off the street. “I think I should go—” Joe starts to say.

“Yes,” Nicky cuts him off. He pulls the hollowed-out book off the shelf and gives Joe the gun and the clip they keep in it. He curls his hand around the back of Joe’s neck. “Come back to me,” he murmurs, face close to Joe’s.

It’s what they say to each other any time they have to separate in a battle. It’s a plea and a prayer in one. They don’t know what ends their immortality. They don’t know when it will happen. But they don’t want it to happen apart.

“Always,” Joe vows. He seals it with a kiss.

As far as plans go, Joe can admit this is not his best. Right now, he’s wandering the streets in hopes of finding either the children who might be in danger or the people who would wish to do them harm. Normally, Joe would prefer more planning, a bit of finesse, but he didn’t exactly have time.

He goes back to the corner where they’d found Leo tonight. There aren’t any children here, but it’s as good a spot as any to start from. He goes block-by-block, straining his ears for any sounds. The likelihood of someone doing their child-snatching in broad daylight seems low, but Joe isn’t a criminal, so he can’t be sure.

Well, he muses contemplatively, technically he _is_ a criminal in a lot of countries. He has been wanted by many governments over the last nine hundred years. For the most part, he’s quite proud of being seen as a criminal by those regimes. If an evil man is against you, you’re probably doing at least one thing right in your life, as far as Joe is concerned.

A scuffling sound to his left draws Joe’s attention sharply. He’s into the more industrial area now, a perfect location for some kind of kidnapping operation. He moves around a chained fence, very purposefully not letting his hands drift to his gun. He purses his lips when he sees the commotion. These people _are_ child snatching in broad daylight. Though child snatching isn’t really the best description; there’s a man who instantly raises Joe’s hackles handing out sandwiches to a small gaggle of children.

Joe stopped questioning his instincts a long, long time ago. He knows to his bones that this man is evil. His only concern is the man’s proximity to the children. Joe won’t do anything to put them in harm’s way. He steps behind the man, watching a few of the children watching him intently. Most of them don’t even look up from their sandwiches.

“Hello,” Joe says conversationally. “Are you affiliated with a charity I could donate to?”

When the man turns around, Joe drops him with a single jab to the solar plexus. It would be funny, except that it starts a low, simmering rage in Joe’s stomach. This man is not a fighter, which means none of the children he’s taken so far have given him any trouble. That makes Joe think the sandwiches are _not_ safe.

“Please don’t eat that,” Joe says. “I think they’re drugged.”

Two of the kids drop the sandwiches instantly. “Is he the one taking kids?” The girl who speaks is the oldest of the group, nearing her teens. Joe doesn’t want to think about what kinds of things could happen to her out on the streets soon. Assuming those things haven’t already happened to her.

“I think so,” Joe says, using his belt to tie the man’s hands.

“Don’t eat them!” The girl scolds the other children.

One little boy starts to sniffle. “I’m hungry.”

“You can come with me,” Joe says. “I’ll feed you.”

The older girl narrows her eyes. “How do I know this isn’t a trick?”

“I guess you don’t,” Joe admits. “But Leo came with me. He’s eating now. There might still be some cake.”

This piques their interest, though he thinks it might be more about the cake than about Leo trusting him. “Okay,” the girl says cautiously. “But when we get to where we’re going, we’ll wait outside until you show us Leo.”

“That is a very smart plan,” Joe tells her. “Good job.”

He’s in a bit of a predicament, though. He can’t exactly drag the man through the street, but he does need answers, and he’s certainly not letting the man _go_. Joe considers for a few seconds before turning to look at the kids around him.

“Is there an empty building anywhere close?” He asks.

“Are you gonna tie him up?” One child, gender undeterminable under an unfortunate haircut and a baggy sweatshirt, asks.

“If I can,” Joe says. “I want to know where he’s taking children and who else he’s working with.”

“We sleep in the abandoned metro station up here sometimes,” the oldest girl says. “You could tie him up there.”

“Perfect,” Joe says. The man is making signs of waking up, so Joe stuffs a handkerchief in his mouth as a gag. The kids follow behind him like a group of ducklings while he drags the man to the station. He finds a spot to leave the man and knocks him out again with the butt of his gun, tying him up with some old cables lying around in the station. Joe doesn’t relish violence, but he finds it hard to drudge up any guilt about hurting this man in particular.

He leads the children back down the city streets, toward the flat. Just like Leo, none of them will walk beside him. They also won’t tell him their names, even after he offers his own. He knows they’re attracting looks, this man with his hands in his pockets being followed by a group of six dirty children, but he hopes they don’t get enough attention for someone to call the police.

“This is the building,” Joe says. “Will you come up the stairs?”

The girl wavers for a second. “Okay,” she finally says. She stands in the front, between Joe and the other children, and his heart starts to ache. He doesn’t know what kinds of things she’s lived through, but here she is, fiercely protecting these other children.

Joe opens the door. “Hello, my darling,” he calls out, being silly enough that one or two of the kids starts to giggle. “I brought some company. Is Leo here?”

Leo comes to the door. The kids clamor over him and Joe manages to herd them all inside. Nicky’s eyes go wide when he sees how many kids there are. Joe tips his head to the kitchen and Nicky follows without hesitation.

“Found a man trying to drug them,” Joe says. “I left him in an abandoned metro station.”

“Okay,” Nicky says. “We’ll feed the children and I’ll go get some answers.”

“I’ll do it,” Joe protests. “You shouldn’t have to.”

Nicky’s hand rests on Joe’s shoulder blade, warm, and his face is very serious as he says, “I would rather do it than you.”

“You’re not a torturer,” Joe says softly.

“Neither are you,” Nicky points out. He drops his hand to Joe’s hip just long enough to give it a squeeze. “Let me.”

Nicky does these things as penance, Joe is pretty sure. Not penance for the work they do or any sins he thinks he’s committed in the centuries they’ve been together. He still pays penance for his role in their meeting, for marching off to a war that was actually an invasion, for not stopping to think and let himself have opinions, for blindly following someone sending him to murder out of hate, for never questioning that hate that had been instilled in him until he’d killed so many people. Whenever he goes to his eventual, final death, it will still be his greatest shame and the only thing he’s done he considers a true, unpardonable sin. He has never and will never forgive himself for it.

Joe doesn’t try to keep arguing. Nicky wouldn’t be Nicky if he weren’t doing the untenable acts so Joe doesn’t have to, ever Joe’s shield against the world. Instead, Joe makes a big pot of the macaroni and cheese recipe Nile gave him. She told him it was how her mother used to make it for her as a child, so Joe perfected it as fast as he could. Nicky hunts through the closets for blankets and any clothes he can find; the children wash, one by one, and the oldest girl—Alba, she finally tells them—supervises them all.

These kids have their own structure, Joe can tell. Alba is in charge, in some ways. By virtue of being the oldest, and being a girl, the other children look to her for answers and guidance and comfort. She is barely twelve and her eyes are weary. She reminds Joe of Andy in a way that is outright painful.

“I’ll go after ‘Asr,” Nicky tells Joe lowly. “The bedroom will be alright, won’t it? I’ll keep them out here while you pray.”

Joe cradles Nicky’s jaw in his hand. “You are the greatest treasure I could have ever found,” he murmurs. “I don’t think I tell you that enough.”

Nicky snorts. “Every day isn’t enough?” He asks wryly, though he’s pressing his face into Joe’s hand and holding onto Joe’s hip.

“Every hour wouldn’t be enough,” Joe says, pushing Nicky’s hair back from his forehead and pressing a gentle kiss there.

Nicky laughs softly. “We can negotiate that later. You’ll have to give me time to come up with a way to tell you _you’re_ the treasure.”

Joe washes quickly and forces himself to focus only on his prayers, not on the children in the kitchen or Nicky or the very real possibility that they’ll be killing someone tonight. He keeps his mind and his heart focused on his words and his movements and on God.

Nicky doesn’t take long, after he sets out to get answers. He’s back before the sun starts to set. Joe doesn’t see any blood anywhere on him, though he takes him into the bathroom to check him over all the same. Nicky shakes his head. “It wasn’t difficult,” he says.

“What did you do with him?” Joe asks.

“I left him there,” Nicky says. “I took the zipties when I went.”

Joe nods. They might need to go get more information from him. They won’t hand him over to the police until they’re leaving. Assuming they hand him over at all. They should probably feed him at some point, if they do want to keep him alive. “So?” He asks.

Nicky sighs. “There isn’t anyone else to find children, at least,” he says. “It’s only him. He works with the people who move the children.” His jaw tightens. “He gets paid by the child.”

“Bastard,” Joe mutters.

“He doesn’t know where they keep the children when he hands them over,” Nicky says grimly. “But he says he only has two days to find more. They’re moving them to their…” Nicky’s mouth twists. “Buyers.”

Joe swears. “Did he know where they’re moving them from?”

“They have a meeting in place,” Nicky says. “We can go instead, find the children, find the guys in charge.”

Joe presses their foreheads together. “Sometimes,” he murmurs. He shakes his head a little, not enough to dislodge Nicky’s. “Sometimes I think we should run away. Stay out of all the fighting. But then…”

Nicky squeezes Joe’s sides. “I know,” he says. “We could never stay out of it. There will always be more children. Or innocent people.”

“And always people to hurt them.”

Nicky brushes his thumb over Joe’s lips. “Always us to help them,” he says softly.

Joe takes a deep breath. He nods and kisses Nicky. Then he calls Andy.

“You were supposed to be on vacation,” Andy scolds when Joe opens the door. Then she sees all the kids behind him and her mock-frown drops. “Oh, Joe.”

Joe shrugs and steps back to let Andy and Nile inside. “Yes, well, you see our predicament.”

“How many do they already have?” Nile asks. Her face is tight. She’s distressed by this. Joe knows she’s seen terrible things, especially with her country’s military, but she is still so young. She’s so _good_. This is hard for her to bear. Joe would like to shield her from it, but he knows she’d never allow that. She wants to fix things, idealistic as it sounds. He knows the feeling well.

“Four,” Nicky says.

“The kids told you that?” Andy checks.

Nicky gives her a look. “The man who took them from the streets told me that.”

Andy doesn’t ask if he could’ve been lying. He couldn’t have been lying to Nicky. Or he could’ve tried, maybe, but he wouldn’t have held out long.

“Hi,” Nile says to the kids. She keeps her voice cheerful but not condescending. She’s obviously practiced with children. “I’m Nile.”

The kids trust Joe and Nicky enough now to not be openly hostile to their visitors. But they still don’t trust adults. They’re all looking up warily. “These are our friends,” Nicky tells them. “They’re going to help us get your friends back.” He turns to Andy. “Did you get the blueprints for the warehouse?”

They get to work planning their attack. This is going to be their first job since Andy lost her mortality, and it’s making Joe jittery. Of course they all feel the adrenaline and anticipation before battle, but this is different. They don’t go into missions actively trying to die, of course, but there has always been a large margin of error in their plans. Technically, any of them could go at any time, but it’s not something they plan around, necessarily.

They have to plan around it, now. Andy is not an acceptable loss.

“Copley knows some guy from Interpol,” Nile says. “We can call him.”

“Copley,” Nicky echoes, stone-faced. “No.”

“He’s on our side now,” Nile reminds him.

Nicky looks at Joe. Joe looks at Andy. Andy sighs. “Nile, we’re going to have to ease into trusting him. It’s one thing for him to make sure we don’t leave any records behind. But we’re not going to meet someone just on his word.”

Nile nods. “Yeah, okay,” she says. “I get that.”

It’s one of the things Joe’s come to love about Nile in the past month. She lets her heart guide her, often, but she’s also very logical. If they give her an explanation, she can usually see their point of view. And she is always willing to wait for them. Funny, when she’s the young one; Joe would have expected them to have to wait for her to catch up.

“We can call Interpol after we’ve gotten away,” Joe points out. “To pick up the trash.”

Nile and Andy both snort in a way that means they’re tolerating his joke. But Nicky laughs, which is always Joe’s goal when he makes a joke. Sure, he’ll make jokes for other people, even if Nicky isn’t around, but no one else’s laugh has ever been as much of a prize as Nicky’s.

When they’re going to sleep that night, the four of them squeezing into the bed while the children cuddle together like puppies on the sitting room floor, Nile raises to an elbow and gives Joe and Nicky a look.

“Have you guys ever heard of transference?” She asks. “Like, for example, when people who were supposed to be on vacation recovering from being kidnapped and held captive go out and find and want to save some other people who are kidnapped and held captive and don’t work through their own trauma?”

“Hmm,” Joe says, pretending to think. “No, I think that must be a theory from a very bad psychologist. Disputed and outdated, I’m sure. But I do think the kind of people who would do that sound very noble.”

“And very handsome, as well,” Nicky adds.

Nile scoffs, laughing and rolling her eyes. “Okay. Got it. No psychoanalysis.”

“These words she uses,” Nicky says, shaking his head sadly. “I am only a poor, uneducated man from the Dark Ages. How can I know what they mean?”

“You were a priest,” Nile says, unimpressed. “And you’ve read, like, every book ever printed.”

“Me?” Nicky feigns shock. “Please, miss, I can only read the word of the Lord.”

Joe buries his face in Nicky’s neck, laughing. Nicky rests his hand on the back of Joe’s head, pressing into Joe’s hair to scratch lightly at his scalp. Andy’s on his other side, and she kicks him lightly when he takes up too much space and laughs when he makes a muffled noise of protest. Joe falls asleep to the sounds of his family playfully arguing, and something in his heart heals just a little faster.

“Are we supposed to just leave them here alone?” Nile asks. They’re leaving to go to the drop site where they’re going to find the other children, but she’s looking at the kids gathered around the TV with concern.

“Pretty sure they’re used to being left alone,” Andy points out quietly.

“Yeah,” Nile says, but she doesn’t sound satisfied.

“I know,” Nicky tells her. “But we cannot take them. And one of us can’t stay behind.”

Nile nods. “No, yeah. You’re right.” She shakes her head and smiles ruefully. “I guess all those Babysitter Club books I read as a kid got me worried.”

This apparently means something to Nicky, because he laughs. Joe shares a mystified look with Andy. He’s assuming it’s a book about people who…babysit? While he’s contemplating this, Leo comes over and tugs at his hand. Joe crouches down.

“Alba says you’re going to send us to the police and they’ll take us away from each other,” Leo reports.

Joe finds himself at a loss for words. The police will, in almost all likelihood, split the children up amongst social workers and state care. “Well…” He blows out a breath. Nicky moves closer and rests his hand on Joe’s shoulder.

“We have to do what will keep you safest,” Nicky says. “I know it sounds scary.”

Leo’s shoulders slump. “Oh,” he says quietly.

Joe looks up to exchange a look with Nicky. Nicky nods, minutely, but doesn’t say anything. They know these kids are going to be gone when they get back. They won’t risk the authorities and social workers.

It is so very tempting to promise Leo he can stay with them forever. He seems to be a trusting child, and in two days he’s already opening up so much. He was already willing to touch Joe to get his attention; that’s a big thing. He and Nicky could spare two decades to raise a child. Hell, they could raise all these children. They have the money and the time and the love. It would be so easy. They could, arguably, do the same amount of overall good for the world in raising a new generation as they do with all their pointed violence and bloodshed.

But he can feel Andy watching him. Andy, who may not have another two decades. Especially if Joe and Nicky decide they’re going to take time off. Andy, who has regained her sense of purpose and faith in humanity now that she’s rejoined mortality. Andy, who would let them go without protest and would genuinely wish them happiness and peace and love.

And Nile. So new, so brimming with the promise of helping others. She’ll think what they’re doing is noble, of course, but she’ll need them, soon. When missions go wrong and there are people who can’t be saved while she heals in an instant. When she misses big milestones in mortality. When the years and decades drag ever onward and everyone she loves has died.

“I’m sorry,” Joe tells Leo. His voice doesn’t crack, but it’s a near thing. Nicky’s hand on his shoulder tightens, squeezes comfortingly.

“Okay,” Leo mumbles.

“We have to go,” Andy says gently. She knows, no doubt, what Joe and Nicky are picturing right now. They’ve all had thoughts like that at some point. Andy herself took time to live a life with a mortal man at one point.

“Leo,” Joe says, throat tight. “Take care of yourself, okay? Take care of each other.” He raises his voice enough for the other children to hear him. Alba meets his eyes. She nods at him and he wants to press his face into Nicky’s neck and weep. She is a _child_. She shouldn’t take this burden. He shouldn’t be letting her take this burden.

“Goodbye,” Nicky says. He graces the children with a smile, bigger than he would normally smile for anyone other than children and one that Joe knows he doesn’t feel. “We have had fun with you these last two days. You are wonderful and precious.”

The children are downcast as Andy, Nile, Joe, and Nicky file out of the house. Joe goes last, turning to take a last look. Leo’s lower lip wobbles, just once, and Joe has to close his eyes and close the door. Nicky takes his hand, just for a moment, while they walk. Joe squeezes it and takes a deep breath. There are other children to save now.

This is far from their first battle. Joe can’t even number how many battles they’ve fought, he and Nicky side-by-side or Joe and Nicky with Andy. It’s only their second time fighting with Nile, but she slips into their rhythm easily.

So it isn’t a lack of experience causing Joe’s heart to pound harder than it ever has, making Joe’s hands shake on his gun and his scimitar. It’s too much experience, maybe. The last experience. Losing sight of Nicky makes him tremble. He’s in a warehouse in Spain but he can only see a lab in England, can only hear the beep of the heart monitor ticking steadily upward while that doctor cuts through his skin like he is not even a person, can only remember his brother telling him his pain is insignificant and his love is worthless.

He focuses on Andy and Nile and Nicky. They are here to find children who are scared and hurt in one of the worst ways possible. He is going to protect those children and he is going to protect his family. He can do this. He can quiet his mind and let his body take over, muscle memory guiding him through.

Their goal is to keep as many of the traffickers alive as possible, in case they can give more information about others in their network or buyers. Joe has to keep reminding himself of that when they find the men, sitting at a card table like they’re on a break at a factory. They have children chained up in this warehouse somewhere and they’re playing gin rummy.

He sees Nicky’s finger hover over the trigger, jaw tight and face cold with fury. If they hadn’t been doing this kind of thing for centuries, if Nicky weren’t so well-trained, he would be opening fire right now.

They make short work of the men. There must be more in the building somewhere, keeping watch, unless they are truly terrible at their jobs. From all Joe’s seen of their operation so far, he wouldn’t be surprised.

“Where are the children?” Nicky demands, lip curling. One man is still conscious, bleeding from the leg and screaming.

“I’m not in charge here!” He insists. “I don’t have the money, please!”

Nile steps on his leg, making him scream louder. It surprises Joe a little; he would’ve expected that from Andy, but not Nile. Then again, when children are at stake, tensions run high. “We don’t want your money,” Nile says disgustedly.

“Where are the children?” Nicky repeats, finger very clearly on the trigger of his gun.

“East side, left corner,” the man sobs. Andy knocks him out and ties him up with the others.

“All good?” Joe checks. He doesn’t think she got hit; the men hardly returned fire.

“All good,” Andy says. Of course, she could have gotten shot and is waiting to tell anyone until they get to the children. She could faint from blood loss along the way. She could die in his arms while he has to decide between getting to the children and getting her to safety. She could—

“Joe,” Nile murmurs. He realizes he’s cut himself on his own blade. He hasn’t done something like that in centuries. His chest is heaving. She looks at him, concern in her eyes, and he shakes his head.

“The children,” he says. She searches his face and then nods.

Nicky walks close enough to press his chest against Joe’s back, cover and comfort in one point of contact. “We are almost done,” Nicky whispers in his ear. His breath is stuttering, too, and Joe thinks maybe they should’ve called Copley’s contact after all. He and Nicky are breaking down.

But they won’t shatter until they’ve gotten the children to safety. Of that, Joe is sure.

They find the children locked in a closet. It isn’t even a room—it’s a broom cupboard. Andy swears under her breath when they see the four of them, hands tied, blindfolded, gagged. Two of them are wailing through their gags. The closet stinks of urine; the children have soiled themselves an untold number of times.

“Hi,” Nile says, voice comforting, but the children hear her and start to scream more. “We’re here to help you.”

They pull the blindfolds off first, but Andy gives Joe a look that says they may need to leave the children gagged. They don’t know how many other people are in this warehouse. The plan is to get the kids out a side door four corridors away; if they scream, it could draw attention.

But Joe can hardly stomach the thought. He looks at Nicky, asking silently for his opinion. Nicky squares his shoulders and crouches beside Nile, right in front of the kids.

“Listen to me, little ones,” he murmurs. “We need to be very quiet to get out of here. Can you be very quiet? I can take these out of your mouth, but you can’t make any noises. Okay?”

One of the screaming children quiets. The other is sobbing so hard she’s shaking. She has a dark bruise across her neck that is making Joe’s vision almost white out. Someone throttled her. Andy kneels beside the sobbing girl. She whispers softly in her ear, stroking her hair gently, until the girl quiets. Nile has untied the children’s hands and blindfolds, waiting for their signal about the gags. She has tears in her eyes.

“Take them out,” Joe decides. Nile doesn’t wait for him to change his mind, and Andy doesn’t contradict him.

“We each take a kid, right?” Nile asks.

“No,” Andy says. “Joe, you take two. Nicky will bring up the rear and cover us.”

Joe holds down a noise in his throat. He knows this is the logical play. This has been how they’ve been doing things for hundreds of years. But just now, leaving Nicky to sacrifice himself is making terror claw at Joe’s chest. He’s panting like he’s injured, fear threatening to overwhelm him. If this is Nicky’s last death and Joe left him to it…

“Yusuf,” Nicky says, standing and taking Joe’s face in one hand. “We are going to get out of this building. We are going to be safe. Yes?”

“Yes,” Joe echoes. It doesn’t help that he can feel Nicky trembling, very slightly, but Joe knows there really isn’t any other choice. “Come back to me,” Joe says, voice breaking.

Nicky presses their foreheads together, closing his eyes for a shared breath. “Always.”

Then they separate, and they go to work. The hallways are empty and silent as they creep away. Joe is completely vulnerable, a child in either arm. Nile is in front of him, with Andy behind him and Nicky in the very back. The little boy clinging to Joe’s right shoulder is hardly breathing, and Joe doesn’t know if that’s from an injury or fear. The little girl in his other arm is bleeding from a gash in her leg. They need to get these children to safety now.

There is a noise ahead of them. Nile holds up her arm and everyone drops to their knees. A man rounds the corner and Nicky shoots him before he can make a sound or raise his gun. The little girl in Joe’s arm hides her face in his neck and whimpers. He would like to rub her back, soothe her, but he can’t. “Don’t look,” he breathes to the children. He doesn’t think it will be a problem; neither seems inclined to move their face from either side of his neck.

Nile gets out the door. Joe gets out the door. Andy gets out the door. Joe gnaws at his lip, waiting. A heartbeat. Two heartbeats. Where is Nicky? The little boy makes a noise and Joe realizes he’s squeezing the children too tightly.

Nicky hasn’t come out.

Joe puts down the children. The little girl clings for a moment, but Nile takes her. Joe can’t breathe. He eases back through the door, into the dark hallway. He can hear that doctor’s voice in his head, coldly commenting on how fascinating it is to watch Nicky regrow his liver after she cut it out, not caring that Nicky himself had lost consciousness from the pain. Joe shakes his head to clear it as he stalks through the dark hallway. Nicky is nowhere to be found. Joe swallows a ball of terror and worry and tries to focus.

Nicky comes around the corner. They have their guns raised at each other for a split second, and Joe gets vertigo as he thinks of a battlefield in the desert and their swords clashing. They lower their guns and head for the door. Nicky is dragging one leg behind him, leaving a blood trail.

“Knife,” he whispers when they get through the door. “One of the men crawled back and threw it. Good aim.”

“Nicolò,” Joe scolds breathlessly. Nicky looks at him and nods, squeezes Joe’s elbow once.

“I came back,” he reminds Joe. Joe nods, heart in his throat. He wants to push Nicky into a corner and touch every inch of him, reassure himself that Nicky is whole and healing. He wants to hide the two of them somewhere, up on a mountain with no signals that would allow news to get to them.

He can’t do either of those things. He leads Nicky back to Andy and Nile and the terrified children. Andy claps Nicky on the back and Nile nods at him. Nicky crouches in front of the children.

“Do any of you know where your parents are?” He asks, but he doesn’t get much of an answer.

“Time to hand the job over,” Andy reminds him. She nods at Nile. “Make the call.”

“I don’t want them to see agents in tac gear storming the warehouse,” Joe says suddenly. That would be terrifying and the kids are already traumatized enough. Though Joe doesn’t know if a tac team would even register after being kidnapped and locked in a closet for who knows how long. “Let’s take them somewhere. Around a corner, at least.”

Andy examines him for a second, but then she nods. “Alright,” she says. “But Joe.” She looks him right in the eyes. “You know we have to turn them over to the authorities.”

He sighs. Nicky, still crouched, puts a hand on his calf. Joe nods. “I know,” he says.

“They need doctors,” Nicky adds.

“Yeah, she’s bleeding,” Joe says, jutting his chin at the little girl. He kneels beside Nicky. “Just a little bit farther, okay?” He asks the kids. “You’ve done such a good job.”

They pick up the kids and carry them away from the warehouse, over to a bench outside the marina office. Joe wishes there were some kind of food cart over here, but it’s long past dark and not the tourist-attraction part of the marina.

Copley’s contact must’ve had a team on standby, because it’s not even half an hour before they hear the quiet march of boots on the ground. “I’m going to check it out,” Andy says.

“Wait,” Nile says. She glances at Joe and Nicky. Joe nods at her. “I’m coming with you.”

Andy doesn’t answer, just heads off with the confidence that Nile will catch up. Nile huffs and runs after her. It leaves Joe and Nicky alone with the kids. They’re giving them drinks from their canteens and Nicky had the foresight to stuff his pockets with sweets to give them, but Joe and Nicky are far from what these children need. Especially considering they’re both struggling right now, too.

“We’re going to need another vacation,” Nicky says ruefully, rubbing at the blood on his pants.

Joe snorts. “No guarantee we won’t find more to do.”

“Maybe we could try harder not to find more to do,” Nicky points out. “Maybe Nile was right.”

Joe makes a face. “Don’t tell me you believe in Freudian psychology now.”

Nicky gives him a withering look. “Of course I would never. But we did not even think once about asking the police to handle all this.”

Joe could remind him of all the times the police have been far from helpful, but he refrains. He gets what Nicky’s trying to say. There are other ways they could’ve handled all this that didn’t end with them storming the warehouse themselves.

“We’re usually better at this,” Joe comments.

Nicky laughs a little. “Compared to who? Andy and Booker?”

Now Joe laughs. That’s a fair point. It’s hardly a victory to handle trauma better than Andy and Booker. A tree stump handles trauma better than Andy and Booker do. He rests his hand on the back of Nicky’s neck. The children don’t care about a few casually intimate touches, and both Joe and Nicky need that right now.

“I didn’t realize how hard it would be to see you in battle after all that,” Joe admits softly.

Nicky nods. “And you,” he agrees. He shakes his head. “That man shouldn’t have surprised me with the knife. But I saw him and…I froze.”

Joe gives the back of Nicky’s neck a squeeze. “I guess we need more time.”

Nicky sighs and presses his shoulder closer into Joe’s. “At least that’s something we’ve always had.”

Andy and Nile come back, leading two plainclothes agents with them. Nicky stands up right away, putting himself between the newcomers and the children. It’s instinct more than logic, and Joe loves him fiercely for it.

Things happen in a blur after that; the agents bring over some kind of aid workers, who help with the children. A few ambulances come—for the children and for the men in the warehouse. And then the four of them, their family, find themselves traipsing through the night in their gear back to their vacation flat. It would be surreal if it weren’t so familiar.

“Oh,” Nile says when they open the door to an empty room. “The kids are gone.” No one says anything and she realizes, “You knew they would be.”

“Wished they wouldn’t,” Joe tells her. “But those kids aren’t going to trust any kind of authorities.”

Nile nods, still looking sad. “I’m guessing you’re not staying for the last three days of your trip?”

Nicky snorts. “No.”

“You could head over to Madrid,” Nile suggests. “It was on the listicle, too.”

“I think we’re ready to come home,” Joe says.

“Home?” Andy says with a little smile. “Scotland’s home now?”

“You’re home,” Joe says simply. “All of us. Together.”

“Aw,” Nile says, laughing a little. “But can I get some input on where we stay for longer than two nights next? Because the rain in Scotland, man. Don’t you have any safehouses in tropical places?”

“There was that one in Hawaii,” Nicky says.

“Hawaii?” Nile perks up.

“But then the volcano erupted, so.” Nicky shrugs. Nile rolls her eyes and throws a pillow at him.

The next day they take the train back to Scotland. Nicky falls asleep on Joe’s shoulder, and Nile falls asleep across the aisle against the window. Andy looks at Joe. “You guys good?” She asks, quiet in the way she can get sometimes.

“Not yet,” Joe says truthfully. He doesn’t lie to Andy. “But we’re getting there.”

She nods. She goes back to looking out the window for a little while. Then she says, so quietly he would miss it if he didn’t know to listen for it, “You’re home too, you know.”

“I know,” he promises her. He’s known it for centuries, but only recently has Andy begun saying those kinds of things out loud. Maybe it’s her mortality. Maybe it was he and Nicky getting captured. He and Nicky were never outright scared about their capture, because they always knew Andy would come for them. When Andy and Booker came in, also captive—before he knew it was Booker who made it all happen—that was the most terrified Joe’s ever been in his very long life.

He and Nicky may need time to get back to fighting shape, mentally speaking, but they both know they’re going to have plenty of love to get them there.

Nicky stirs, like he knew Joe was thinking about love and needed to peek his head in to make the thought even stronger. He smiles sleepily up at Joe, one of the most beautiful sights in all of human civilization. Joe leans down and bumps his nose against Nicky’s. Andy is politely pretending not to see them.

“You know, I had an idea about how we might not find any more work for ourselves,” Joe tells Nicky.

“How?” Nicky asks, winding an arm around Joe’s waist. He’s still sleepy and warm, resting more of his weight on Joe than on the seat. It’s very okay with Joe.

“Well, you see, it starts with us getting into bed and not getting out,” Joe says.

Nicky’s face breaks into a wide smile. “I’m very interested in hearing more about this idea.”

“I thought you might be,” Joe says seriously. “So I’ve been trying to think of some activities we might use to occupy our time.”

Nicky laughs, warm and loving against Joe’s shoulder. “I think I can help you,” he says.

Joe kisses him, brief but soft. “Yes,” he says, leaving his face close to Nicky’s. “I think that’s always true.”

Nicky presses his forehead against Joe’s, squeezing his waist, and Joe thinks he’s quite content to have time heal his wounds, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope my discussion of Joe's feelings re: prayer weren't too Christian-rooted. I was raised in a religion that really pushed the whole "we're all sinners but don't worry, God loves you and your filth anyway!" which could sound nice, I guess, if you focus on the love part but often they really hit that filthy sinner part harder, so prayer could get complicated when we didn't feel good about ourselves. If anyone is down for sensitivity reading future fic, please let me know!
> 
> [my tumblr](http://biblionerd07.tumblr.com)


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